The tortured
and decapitated body of 39-year-old María
Elizabeth Macías Castro was found on a Saturday evening in September
2011. It had been dumped by the side of a road in Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican
border town ravaged by the war on drugs. Macías, a freelance journalist, wrote
about organized crime on social media under the pseudonym "The Girl from Laredo." Her murder, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, was the first in which a journalist was killed in direct
relation for reporting published on social media. It remains unsolved.

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New
York, March 13, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists hails the Mexican
Senate's landmark approval today of a constitutional
amendment that, if passed by a majority of states, would federalize anti-press
crimes and transfer investigative powers to national authorities.

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New York, March 13, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists welcomes the Mexican Senate's approval today of a constitutional amendment that makes attacks on the press a federal offense
and calls on authorities to end the widespread impunity for crimes against
journalists.

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The Mexican president promised to protect a besieged press corps with a federal protection program, a special prosecutor and new legislation making anti-press violence a federal crime. But Felipe Calderón Hinojosa has failed at nearly every turn. By Mike O'Connor

New York, June 20,
2011--A prominent Mexican newspaper columnist, his wife, and a son were
shot to death in their home in Veracruz, according to state investigators, a
shocking assault that underscores the country's ongoing crisis. The administration
of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa must take decisive action to end to the cycle of
violence undermining Mexico's democracy, the Committee to Protect Journalists
said today.

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On Friday, opposition legislators in Mexico disrupted
a congressional session by raising a banner with an image of President Felipe
Calderón and a message that read: "Would you let a drunk drive your car? No,
right? So why would you let one drive your country?" Radio MVS' Carmen
Aristegui, one of Mexico's most popular journalists, addressed the issue on her
weekly radio show, asking on the air whether Calderón should give a formal
answer as to whether he had a drinking problem. MVS then fired Aristegui for
allegedly violating the station's code of ethics.

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"Tell them not to kill me!"
pleads a man in the opening lines of a fascinating tale of violence with the same
title by one of Mexico's
most esteemed writers, Juan Rulfo. It is, sadly, the same cry for help that
Mexican journalists are sending out to the world today. On Tuesday, October 19,
prominent writers and journalists from Mexico
and the United States will
gather in New York for "State of Emergency: Censorship by Bullet in Mexico," an evening of readings and discussions
about the threats facing members of the Mexican press who report on drug-related
violence.

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Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa had a message to deliver and it wasn't about press freedom. After hearing the
concerns presented by a joint delegation from CPJ and the Miami-based
Inter American Press Association last week, the president wanted us to know something: He
didn't go looking for a fight against the drug cartels.

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Mexico City,
September 22, 2010--Calling the right to free expression a priority of his
government, Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa pledged today to push
for legislation that would make attacks on journalists a federal crime. In a
lengthy meeting with a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists and
the Inter American Press Association, the president also said federal
authorities will soon implement a program to provide security to at-risk
journalists, one modeled after a successful effort in Colombia.